Aggies are officially in the SEC, but they’re still Aggies and we love ’em

Aggies are passionate (to say the least) about their teams. (Nick de la Torre/Chronicle)

Let’s talk about one of my favorite groups on the planet. Aggies.

Aggies rank just below old football coaches, comedians and strippers, um, professional dancers on the list of people with which I like to hangout.

If you don’t love Aggies, you obviously don’t know many.

They are such a special group that the State of Texas should have a “Take an Aggie to Lunch Day.”

I’m not kidding.

Hey, some of my good friends are Aggies. There is an Aggie or two in my neighborhood. I’ll even buy an Aggie a drink at Three Bs, the world’s best bar and grill. So though the feeling of disrespect is part of Aggie DNA, don’t take this as a negative.

Despite the secession, Aggies, I still love you.

Often Aggies try to convince you that all schools have crazy fans, who are irrational, ridiculous and just plain simple. That is true. But deep down, they know darn well A&M has more such fans than any school in the country.

That loyalty and dedication to all things Maroon is what makes A&M so great.

Aggies are loud and passionate, but rarely obnoxious. While University of Texas fans, on the other hand, are quiet, often don’t give a damn and often obnoxious. There is no doubt which school’s fans rank highest on the jerk meter.

But when it comes to that which is easy to poke fun, A&M has no peer. I didn’t invent Aggie jokes, heck, I’m not sure the first few hundred that were told were jokes at all, just humorous historical accounts.

Take today, for instance, it isn’t an Aggie joke that the school is having a flag-raising ceremony to mark its entrance into the SEC.

I mean, you’d think they were restoring beat up Old Glory at Fort Sumter or something.

It wouldn’t shock me if R. Bowen Loftin, adjusted his bow tie, and took the place of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher to belt out an emotional speech about what going to the SEC means for Texas A&M.

“On this solemn and joyful day we lift to the breeze our conference’s flag, now the banner of Aggieland, with the fervent prayer that God would crown it with honor, protect it from treason, and send it down to our children with all the blessings of civilization, liberty and football championships.”

Speaking of Aggie jokes, somehow, I was part of a pathetic Aggie “gotcha” program over the weekend. Pathetic is the only word I can use to describe it, as it was so sad.

On Aug. 10 of last year, I sent out the following tweet on Twitter:

“I have no doubt that A&M fans are talking about going to the SEC. Get back to me when the SEC is talking about A&M coming there.”

Clearly, my point was that the SEC powers-that-be had not indicated they were ready to welcome A&M into the conference. Things were very fluid at the time and I’m not one to jump off a cliff without knowing how high it is.

Three days later, Bernie Machen of Florida, the chairman of the SEC presidents issued a statement: “The SEC presidents and chancellors met today and reaffirmed our satisfaction with the present 12 institutional alignment.” In other words, they voted against extending A&M an offer.

Six weeks later, SEC chancellors and presidents did vote to extend an invitation to A&M to join the conference.

Now, a thinking person might figure that would be the time that A&M fans could have gotten back to The King to toss that tweet at me as some sort of “ha ha in your face” thing, right?

Oh no. Not Aggies. Some of them are a little slow.

It took until yesterday, almost 10 months after the SEC had indeed not only talked about A&M joining the league, but voted to allow it to do so that Aggies figured, “Oh, we showed The King.”

So, I wakeup yesterday to more than 100 e-mails and tweets informing me that the SEC had finally gotten in touch with A&M. “So there, King.” Some were even vulgar, telling me what sexual acts I should perform on myself, but most were clean and only wanted to inform me that Sunday was the day that the SEC had gotten back to A&M.

It was hilarious.

And some of you think I don’t like Aggies. What other fan base provides such regular laughs?

Yes, I’m still ticked off that A&M and Texas have slapped history in the face and broke up the best rivalry in the state, but I am excited about A&M joining the SEC.

It’s good for business.

Just imagine all the new Aggie jokes that’ll emerge from them spending time with those brainiacs in the Alabama.